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Now that President Barack Obama has decided that the war on terror has entered a new phase, he plans to devote a greater effort -- in the immortal words of John Lennon -- to giving peace a chance. That shift is already underway. The indefatigable John Kerry seems to be engaged...

Let’s imagine a world in which Bashar al-Assad wins a military victory, remains in power, and defies the world to deal with him. Because, unfortunately, it appears to be an all too plausible scenario. An influx of Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon, and support from Iran’s...

Wednesday, 29 May 2013 Octavia Nasr When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, I was a teenager, growing up in a peaceful household that was neither political nor sectarian. Although Hezbollah was born then as a resistance movement to Israel’s presence in Lebanon,...

When I stated a few months ago that the Iraqi government’s involvement in Syria was serving the Iranian regime, I did not have enough evidence. I made these comments based on Iraqi-Iranian stories and happenings in Egypt, Lebanon, Gaza and Syria. Today the picture is much clearer and there is...

A proposed conference in Geneva is gaining traction with the US and Russia throwing diplomatic muscle behind the plan. United Nations New chances that international peace talks will take place in Geneva in the next month hang in the balance of ongoing diplomatic...

This piece is part of " Obama and the Middle East: Act Two ," a series of policy proposals for the president's second term by Washington Institute fellows. The Assad regime's brutal suppression of the Syrian uprising has spurred a humanitarian disaster, with the United Nations now...

While Hezbollah’s intervention in Syria is helping Assad regain military foothold in key areas of the country, it promises a more vicious and prolonged sectarian conflict in the longer run. The involvement strongly backed by Iran, could open the door for the West to arm the opposition in...

Russia and Iran will be keen to see Bashar al-Assad step down as soon as his seven-year term is up in 2014, according to Professor Fawaz Gerges , the director of the Middle East centre at the London School of Economics. He said that the way Russia and the United States...

Two rockets fired at Hezbollah-controlled southern Beirut bring Syria 's escalating civil war deeper into the heart of Lebanon and closer to unrestrained regional conflict. The two-year-old conflict in Syria has already tumbled into Lebanon's Bekaa Valley,...

A video emerged on Youtube showing a crowd of
Iraqi Shia beating their chests and chanting. The video was posted on May 1,
another video was posted on the same day .
Some have suggested the video is old and the
names of Syrian cities, Deraa and Harasta,...

My column* this week in The National
discusses the carnage in the Syrian coastal area of Banias over the weekend
committed by pro-regime militias, probably led by a Turkish man called Mihraç
Ural. Ural is known for activists in the area. He leads a militia, called the
Syrian...

Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, the leader of Al Qaeda
franchise in Iraq, dropped a bombshell Monday by announcing that Syria’s Jabhat
al-Nusrah and the Islamic State of Iraq were to be united under a new name
“Islamic State in Iraq and Sham [Levant] (ISIS)” – which can also be called Al...

Last week, Moaz Al-Khatib recorded a video in
which he addressed Hizbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah in relation to the
party’s involvement in Syria. Al-Khatib's speech was moving and powerful. But
Al-Khatib seemed convinced that Nasrallah was a virtuous person who could...

In this video, Syria’s Sunni cleric Sheikh
Saeed Ramadan Al Bouti gives his last religious seminar in a mosque in
Damascus. At 20:10 , a bomb goes off .
In the beginning of his lecture, he says this
lesson marks the 200 th lesson in a series about...

There seem to be some important developments
with regard to the Syrian opposition and regional patronage over the past few
days. Saudi Arabia appears to have taken over from Qatar in dealing with the
Syrian opposition, as great powers begin to agree on general principles for a...

The Syrian opposition is holding talks in Turkey to restructure and expand the National Coalition (NC). As I reported earlier this month, the talks follow a visit by 12 members of the NC to Riyadh this month. It’s important to remember here that the Muslim...

For analysts familiar with the politics of Syria, the country’s descent into chaos amounts to an all-too-predictable pattern. It also parallels what Rami Makhlouf , a major regime figure and first cousin of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, bluntly announced in an interview with...

Endgame for the Syrian National Coalition
The international conference called for by
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
to end the conflict in Syria may not actually take place. And if it does, it is
unlikely to succeed. At...